Dallas Stars Blog

Anger might be the right emotion for all in Starsland today

Owner Tom Gaglardi was at the game and knows a thing or two about hockey. He was mad.

So was Joe Nieuwendyk, who had to make some tough decisions and clearly did not get the results he wanted.

Stars coach Glen Gulutzan was frustrated, confounded, exasperated. He kept believing until there wasn’t time to believe anymore.

And what do you do then?

While you can throw something across the room, vent on the internet or simply turn off the television and go to sleep, they can’t. This isn’t a game to them, this is their lives.

And so they must find answers.

They must find them, because they are paid very richly to do so. They must find them, because they really would like to keep their jobs. But honestly, they must find them, because they are driven madly to do so.

That’s both a comfort and a concern. So you’re telling me that this group worked its tails off and still came up with this? Yeah, I know. But deep in that work, they should have become better, they should have learned a few things, right?

And that should improve the team going forward.

Nieuwendyk clearly has made some decisions with his gut, and now he has had some time to look at them. Should he have shipped out James Neal for Alex Goligoski? Should he have trusted a rookie head coach and given him almost no NHL experience on his coaching staff? Should he have taken whatever he could get for some veterans at the trade deadline instead of trusting that this team could get it done?

Should he have burned a year of Reilly Smith’s entry level contract to see him sit in the pressbox as a healthy scratch?

In each situation, you have to believe that Nieuwendyk will look back with a critical eye and assess his performance. You have to believe that he is as disappointed as anyone.

The same goes for Gulutzan. He has to ask himself what went wrong with the power play, did he trust too many veteran players, does he need to coach NHL players differently than he coached minor league players? He has to be watching the playoffs and looking at what the other coaches are doing, and he has to be making a plan for next season already.

The guy has known nothing but success as a coach for eight years, so this has to hurt him badly.

Gaglardi might feel the most pain. He worked for more than a year to finally become an NHL owner. He took over a team that is bleeding money, and he has to spend even more to patch some of the holes. He is a fan of the game, a passionate fan of the game, who doesn’t mind speaking a few opinions as he watches.

When asked for an interview after the game, he politely declined and said he would speak in a couple of days. He didn’t want to let his emotions speak. But he will demand answers, he will demand accountability. Seriously, you pay all of that money to feel like this? That might be the best thing that Stars fans can know today, that he’s as mad as you are, and he wants it fixed as quickly as possible.

The guess is Gaglardi won’t be firing the GM or the coach, but he has to at least consider those options. Just as Nieuwendyk has to consider what to do with a leadership group that has now failed to get this team to the playoffs for four straight seasons. This same core lost in Minnesota last season when it had a playoff berth gift-wrapped, and then this season it went 3-8-0 down the stretch when it seemed to have the post-season locked up.

Check the “Streak” section of the NHL standings today and see how many teams have gone four straight games without getting a point. It’s really tough to do in today’s NHL…and yet the Stars did it when they could least afford it. That has to make them mad.

There are contract issues for several players, potential free agents to consider, and a solid pool of prospects to assess, but Nieuwendyk’s biggest question might be: What does he do with a group of players who are under guaranteed contracts for next season? Does this team need to move past veterans like Brenden Morrow, Mike Ribeiro, Stephane Robidas and Steve Ott?

That quartet has had it chances with three different coaches, so at some point you have to start thinking that maybe it’s not the coaching.

But that’s going to be a very tough discussion.

The Stars have one more game left and then they will clear out their lockers and head off to summer…early…again. The hope is they are embarrassed and disappointed and frustrated and…mad.

The Stars love to use positivity as a motivator, and that’s a fine strategy, but so are fear
and accountability and anger.